Tag Archives: creek

Animals, Gear, Landscapes, Nature

Not Enough Posting

With the craziness that 2020 was behind us, I’m trying to find time to get back into my photography hobby.  While I never let the camera sit too long on the shelf, the majority of reaching for it has been for family shots only.  The times I have managed to get out have been fewer, but still needed.

Now that 2021 is here, I thought I’d start off the year right with the return of an old friend.  A few years ago, I made the mistake of selling off my Fuji X kit to move to Sony.  Exactly 1 year later, I swiftly moved back to Fuji because the Sony just didn’t feel right.  Last week, I finally came full circle by picking up an X-Pro3 to replace my beloved X-Pro2.

The color is the Dura Silver finish and I love it.  This camera just makes me want to get out and shoot.  Everything about it is so intuitive and simple.  The new optical and electronic viewfinder is better than the X-Pro2 model in both resolution and overall size.  It does not have the dual magnification like the X-Pro2, but I haven’t found myself missing that yet as my main lenses, the 23mm, 35mm and a 56mm all work quite well with it.  I went out for my first short hike with it this afternoon in below freezing temperatures and couldn’t have been happier with it.

It took me 2 years of mistakes and learning, but I finally came back to where I should have been all along.

Landscapes, Nature

Creek Walking up Bruner Run in Ohiopyle

There are not many places that I haven’t ventured too yet in Ohiopyle State Park, so when I hear about something new, I jump at the chance to find it.  This happened when I had a day off of work and needed a place to get some hiking in and test out the Sony A7iii setup that I recently moved into.  The place was the Bruner Run area of Ohiopyle and in particular, a half mile stretch that had a ton of small waterfalls as the creek made it’s way off the  mountain and into the Yough River below.

The hike itself wasn’t long, but there was a lot of up and down to stay along the creek.  This wasn’t a problem and gave my legs a good workout.  My loadout today was somewhat light; Sony A7iii, Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8, Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5, carbon fiber tripod, remote shutter release, ND filters, batteries, rain covers and other small odds and ends.  All of this fit beautifully into a Peak Design Sling 10l bag.  For the longest time I’ve fought the urge to buy that bag, but I’m glad I did.  It carried extremely well, didn’t hurt my shoulder and was much easier to work out of than a backpack that I would normally carry.

One of the biggest surprises was using my new Breakthrough Photography ND filters.  They simply worked as they should with almost no color cast or other detrimental effects to the image.  I’m used to using somewhat cheap ND filters and these normally leave a purple-ish cast that can be difficult to remove in post.  The Breakthrough filters exhibited none of this and just did what they should. I mostly used an X4 6-stop ND on the Tamron 28-75mm, but I also picked up a pair of X2 10-stop’s for use on the Tamron and another for the Voigtander 15mm.

All in all, this move to Sony is going well.  I do miss the Fuji control structure at times and some of the colors, but the Sony A7iii is a very powerful camera that I have a lot left to learn about.